Kidnapped by Hamas
- Gianelle Winer
- Nov 21, 2024
- 3 min read
On October 7th of 2023, Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group composed of tens of thousands of people, invaded Israel and killed approximately 1200 soldiers and civilians in the most vicious ways (the most Jews killed in a day since the holocaust). Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) say they found that Hamas burned children, raped girls and women, and posted videos of their doings on telegram. They infiltrated homes, and neighborhoods, and killed entire families. Additionally, the UN said on August 5th, 2024 that nine staff members working for UNRWA will be sacked because they may have been involved in the October 7th attacks. Terrorists also dragged 251 civilians and soldiers of various ages, sexes, religions, and races into Gaza to hold as hostages.
Most of these hostages, including babies and the elderly, have been in captivity for 365 days. Despite many attempts by Israel to release the hostages in exchange for a ceasefire, they have failed as Hamas has rejected all calls for a truce. Out of these 251 hostages, around 40 were women, and 30 were children, including 9-month-old Kfir Bibas, who has spent the majority of his life in captivity. Additionally, authorities say that two Peruvian hostages were killed and three are missing. Hamas released the following picture of 4 IDF soldier hostages.
(Hostage Families Release Photos of 4 Female Soldiers from Early Days of Captivity, 2024)
Behind them is a picture of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
In this picture, we can see Liri Albag (Age 19), Agam Berger (Age 20), Daniella Gilboa (Age 20), and Karina Ariev (Age 20). The girls have bandages on their heads, bloodstains on their clothing, handcuff marks, and bruises. Also, in the following picture, we can see foreign nationals being held by Hamas gunmen in a photo distributed on social media.
(Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
(Foreigners from across the Globe Killed, Missing, or Abducted in Hamas Massacre, 2023)
Hostages are being held either in homes or an intricate system of underground tunnels. Some tunnels stretch up to 2.5 miles long and 66 feet underground. On Saturday, August 31, 6 hostages were found dead in a 20-meter-deep tunnel, including Hersh Goldberg-Pin, an American citizen. Moreover, Abdallah Aljamal, an ex Al Jazeera reporter was confirmed to be holding hostages Almog Mair Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv captive in his family home. This is not the first occurrence of Gazan civilians keeping hostages in their homes.
A description of Abdallah Aljamal on Al-Jazeera. (credit: screenshot)
(MERLIN, 2024)
It is also important to acknowledge the terrible conditions Palestinians are being put through. Water pipes have been made into make-shift missiles by Hamas leaving the civilians with insufficient water. To make matters worse, one in five Gaza rockets misfire, landing in Gaza and killing more civilians.
Image released on April 7th, 2024 of a 900-meter tunnel uncovered by the IDF.
(IDF Assesses Much of Hamas Tunnel Network Still in “Good Functional State” – Report, 2024)
Currently, it is estimated that 97 out of the 251 hostages remain alive. In November of 2023, 105 hostages were released during a week-long truce and 4 hostages were released previous to that. The IDF has rescued 8 hostages, and during these rescues unfortunately killed over 200 people according to the Gaza health ministry run by Hamas. 37 bodies of the hostages have been recovered counting three mistakenly killed by the IDF military.
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